


in hindsight, you are my perfect vision

by moonrise31



Series: once, twice, and again until it's over [24]
Category: TWICE (Band)
Genre: F/F, ot9 because who else do you think i am, saida maybe if you squint
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-01-24
Updated: 2020-01-24
Packaged: 2021-02-27 06:42:41
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 6,530
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/22382779
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/moonrise31/pseuds/moonrise31
Summary: In which Dahyun takes up a very risky and incredibly illegal line of work. And yet, it still doesn't prepare her for Chaeyoung, who -- just for the sake of Tzuyu's smile -- might not even stop at killing.
Relationships: Chou Tzuyu/Son Chaeyoung
Series: once, twice, and again until it's over [24]
Series URL: https://archiveofourown.org/series/935700
Comments: 9
Kudos: 137





	in hindsight, you are my perfect vision

**Author's Note:**

> long live school meal club

Dahyun is nervous, but that’s to be expected from any first day at a new job. So, standing here on the sidewalk just outside her future place of employment, she can admit to herself that the office building with forty stories worth of reflective glass panes stretching into the clouds above the city makes her think about how many people on the inside happen to be looking through the windows, their idle curiosities drilling into her skull.

At least this is the second time she’s been here, after the initial interview with Park Jihyo. Jihyo, whose eyes aren’t a particularly special color but still manage to gleam the same way no matter the lighting, as if she’s already seen everything there is to know about Dahyun and her computer science degree from one of the smaller universities in Seoul, her subsequent two years spent in a cubicle debugging software that has no useful future, and the exact nature of her less than legal “coding activities” she’d taken up first on a whim, and then to keep herself from going insane. Jihyo turned out to be exactly the type Dahyun would expect to post a listing online requesting someone of Dahyun’s almost exact skill set and experience, down to the innocuous last lines of the job description that Dahyun is able to read between: if she applies, there probably isn’t any going back. 

And now, she’s here.

Dahyun’s new workplace is on the twenty-ninth floor. She remembers the receptionist as soon as she walks through the automatic sliding doors, meeting the stare of a familiar face only just visible from behind the high desk. Minatozaki Sana apparently remembers, too, and she beams. “Dahyun! Welcome back.”

“Thank you,” Dahyun says. She looks around, but the foyer is empty. 

“First day jitters?” Sana stands up and walks around the desk. “You don’t have to be so nervous.”

“I’ll try not to be.” Dahyun looks around again, although seeing Sana smiling does help calm her heart a little. “So, what’s next?”

Sana steps forward. “I’ll take you to meet the boss.”

Dahyun tries not to choke on air, but her voice still comes out squeakier than she’d hoped. “The boss? Really? Already?”

“We’re a small company,” Sana says easily, “and we’re all friends here. Tzuyu is no different. You’ll get to meet the rest, too!”

Dahyun puts on a smile as she follows Sana into the hallway behind the reception desk. Jihyo’s office is the first one on the right, just like it was last Monday when Dahyun had come in for her interview. But this time, Sana leads her further down, past rooms designated for SECURITY and DATA ANALYSIS and HUMAN RESOURCES -- although the last one has been labeled _Not funny, Im Nayeon_ with a yellow post-it.

The room at the end of the hall doesn’t have a placard, but Dahyun can only assume it’s her new boss’s office when Sana stops in front of it. Sana looks over her shoulder to flash Dahyun one last reassuring grin before twisting the doorknob.

The room is surprisingly full when Dahyun steps in; at a glance, there are maybe six or seven others scattered around, either on the couch or sitting around an unimpressive office desk -- even Sana’s is probably larger. 

“Hey, everyone.” Sana nudges Dahyun a few steps forward. “Say hello to our newest member.”

Dahyun bows. “Nice to meet you all.”

“Kim Dahyun.” Jihyo is in one of the chairs by the desk, and her eyes smile sharply as she nods. “Good to see you again.”

The rest take turns introducing themselves, or having Sana point them out one by one. Im Nayeon is the one sitting next to Jihyo, and looks a lot more like a member of the human resources department than Dahyun had expected, with her friendly eyes and carefully kept hair. Yoo Jeongyeon takes up the last of the three seats at the desk, and introduces herself as head of security.

Myoui Mina and Hirai Momo are on the couch -- Momo lounging comfortably in the corner while Mina sits properly on the cushion edge beside her. Dahyun almost misses Son Chaeyoung in her hoodie and sweatpants, a university student lost among the adults in the room as she raises her hand in a careless wave.

Chou Tzuyu sits on the other end of the couch, and only smiles at Dahyun. Dahyun isn’t even entirely sure her new boss is much older than her, if at all. But she doesn’t get to think much further before Sana speaks up again, pointing out Momo and Mina as Dahyun’s future teammates in data analysis. 

Dahyun bows again, feeling dismissed. The other two do get up from the sofa and head towards the door, Momo turning around to gesture for Dahyun to come with. 

“Have fun,” Sana tells her as they walk back out. “First days aren’t meant to be hard.”

“We won’t even haze you,” Momo promises. 

Dahyun laughs louder than she’d meant to, mostly because Momo has the rare trait of sounding sincere and also looking like it.

Mina glances at Dahyun. “The hazing is mostly for Momo, actually, because it’s the only way to get her to share food.”

“I see,” says Dahyun, something like relief pulling the corners of her mouth upwards. Mina smiles, Momo whines, and Sana waves before returning to the foyer. 

-

Chaeyoung waits for the remaining members to leave the room before turning to face Tzuyu. “So, what do you think?”

Tzuyu blinks. “If her resume is all true, like Jihyo says it is, then I don’t see how she can’t help.”

“Right,” says Chaeyoung. She reaches up to poke Tzuyu in the shoulder. “But what do you think of her, as a person?”

Tzuyu always sits perfectly still, except for the barest tap of her right ring finger against her left. The movement is mostly hidden by how her hands are cupped carefully in her lap, but sometimes Chaeyoung thinks that she can feel the motion stirring the air around Tzuyu, thrumming like the haze of a desert mirage.

Chaeyoung nudges her again. “Well?”

“She seems nice,” Tzuyu finally says. “I’d like to be friends with her,” she adds after another second.

Chaeyoung smiles and leans back into the sofa. “That’s good, then.”

Tzuyu taps some more. Then she shifts to face Chaeyoung instead of the coffee table in front of them. “What do you think?”

“Hm?” Chaeyoung laces her fingers behind her head and closes her eyes. There’s some sunlight streaming in through the full-length window across the room, and she imagines it warming her face. 

Tzuyu is definitely the last person on the planet to let a question go once she’s asked it. “What do you think of Kim Dahyun?”

Chaeyoung opens her eyes again. “She’ll get the job done.”

Tzuyu leans forward a little, and their shoulders brush just barely. “I meant as a person, too.”

“I know,” says Chaeyoung. She turns, ear pressed into the palm she has behind her head, and looks over the parts of Tzuyu’s face not obscured by the point of her own elbow -- an eye, the bridge of her nose, the dimple that comes out whenever Tzuyu thinks she’s being a tiny bit childish. “She already passed Jihyo’s test. Nayeon has reservations, but she always does at first. Jeongyeon assumes the best, and Momo and Mina are just excited to have another victim to beat on Mario Party.” Chaeyoung pauses. “Sana likes her, too.”

Tzuyu tilts her head, resting her cheek against the back of the couch. And with the sun in the corner of her eye and the dye in Tzuyu’s hair now mostly faded, Chaeyoung remembers a gray room with one-way mirrors for walls and a child curled up in a chair across from her, staring down at the metal table in between them. “What about you?” The Tzuyu now says, and all Chaeyoung sees is the Tzuyu from back then mouthing the same words.

Chaeyoung hums as she sits up, leaning forward to retrieve a stack of printed sheets from the corner of the coffee table. “Are these for me?”

Tzuyu stares for a moment, but she knows that Chaeyoung prefers to keep people distant at first -- it had taken her weeks to warm up to even Momo. So Tzuyu finally dips her chin in a nod. “Yes, I’ve finally finished.”

“Thanks.” Chaeyoung taps the papers against the table before standing up, straightened stack in hand. “We’ll get working on it, then.”

“Chaeng,” Tzuyu says to Chaeyoung’s back, and Chaeyoung immediately stops. She turns, already knowing the exact curve of Tzuyu’s cheeks and the angle of the jut she’s given her bottom lip.

Chaeyoung sighs, but smiles as she steps closer to the couch. Because Tzuyu is a little bit of a different person now, and that is all the relief Chaeyoung needs. “Stop pouting. We’ll be done before you know it.”

Then Tzuyu stands up, pulling Chaeyoung in for a hug before the other gets a chance to shift the papers out of the way. The sheets crumple in between them, and Chaeyoung lets them go so she can clasp her own hands against the slope of Tzuyu’s back. “Be safe,” Tzuyu murmurs into her hair, and Chaeyoung feels the slightest rhythm tapping onto the arm Tzuyu has wrapped around her shoulders. 

“I always am,” Chaeyoung promises. She steps away. “So catch up on your sleep, okay? Nayeon and I will be back soon.”

“Okay,” says Tzuyu, looking more than ready for a soft bed. Chaeyoung turns towards the door, pulling her hood up as she scans the papers Tzuyu had typed up for her. 

It’s going to be a long week.

-

Dahyun quickly falls into a routine. What the routine is for, she still isn’t quite sure. The reason for Tzuyu’s company is still vague, unspoken in the name of principles she has yet to grasp. But Dahyun hadn’t really expected much else from a job that requires her to troll the deepest corners of the dark web and hack into government databases with twenty different levels of encryption that aren’t even supposed to exist. 

Mina and Momo are right alongside her, of course. And it’s impressive, really, how well she fits into the third desk squeezed into the data analysis room, Momo’s mini fridge on one side and the futon Mina diligently makes up with fresh sheets every day on the other. The remaining free space is taken up by a television screen for all of the Nintendo Switch games Mina has accumulated, and Dahyun is quick to join Momo’s complaints about how Mina must have a secret button on her own controller that’s rigged to let her win every single damn game. Mina always tells them, in fewer but nicer words, to just get better.

Sometimes Dahyun wonders whether she’s actually belonged anywhere before this.

On the other hand, Dahyun is absolutely sure she’s still being tested. Which makes sense, because even Jihyo wouldn’t know the intricacies required for the actual work she’d been interviewing for. So at the end of the day, Dahyun diligently compiles her results and sends it all over to Momo and Mina before flopping onto the futon. The first few times she’d at least tried to pretend to rest, but the other two make no secret of their scrutiny, poring over her findings with an intensity Dahyun hadn’t even picked up from the two seconds she’d made eye contact with Tzuyu on her very first day.

Dahyun hasn’t seen Tzuyu again, since, or Chaeyoung, and Nayeon’s door has also remained closed. But Dahyun has made enough small talk with Jihyo and Jeongyeon in passing and with Sana over her lunch break to figure that these long absences aren’t abnormal.

Talking with Sana is nice because she’s the best at hiding that she knows much more about what’s going on than Dahyun does. Dahyun is sure that Sana does much more than sit at the reception desk all day, just like how Jihyo can’t only be responsible for interviews. But Dahyun supposes that she will learn these things once she passes all of the tests, and throws herself into her work with a vigor that has Momo bringing in an energy drink for her every evening. Mina even presents her with a pillow shaped like a tofu cube, so that she’ll have something to rest her chin on during late nights.

Dahyun doesn’t mind being the last one to leave the office for the day, sometimes even sleeping over when she realizes she’s missed the last bus back to her own apartment. It’s not like she has much to return to: bare walls and a stained ceiling and the kitchen faucet that always ends up leaking water onto the cracked linoleum below. Someone else is always around, here -- the yellow strip of light under Jihyo’s door has never gone dark, and Jeongyeon has offered Dahyun a steaming cup of midnight ramyun more than once already.

Still, an apartment is an apartment, and Dahyun doesn’t realize until the early hours of one morning that she has to drop off the rent in her landlord’s mailbox before he wakes up. She checks the time -- if she’s fast, she can catch the last bus leaving the stop a block from their building. So she grabs her bag and keys, jogging past Sana’s empty desk and through the sliding doors. 

Dahyun has never had a particular opinion about the big city atmosphere, and Seoul is nothing but alive even at this late hour. She shifts the strap on her bag so it sits more comfortably on her shoulder before she continues down the sidewalk.

The street lamps provide more than enough light, only fading into the deep darkness of the alleyways she passes by between buildings. The air is quieter at night, only buzzing with a blanket of urban white noise. And then Dahyun smells smoke.

It stings more than barbecue, and settles in her nostrils with a scent sicklier than extinguished cigarettes. But the night remains dark and light in all the right places, no telltale orange flicker or spark in sight. Then there’s a crash from the alley ahead, and Dahyun skids to a stop just in front of the entrance.

“Stupid glorified metal box,” grumbles the taller of the two figures in front of the dumpster sitting in the shadows of the alley. “They’re going to find a dent here in the exact shape of my knee.”

Dahyun freezes. She’s only heard Nayeon’s voice once before -- 

“Dahyun.” The other person steps away from the dumpster, into the light: Chaeyoung.

“Dahyun?” Now Nayeon turns around, leaning down to rub at her knee. “Hey, there. Working late again?”

“Um.” Dahyun nods numbly. “Yeah. But I have to, you know.” She jerks a thumb in the direction of the bus stop, just a few meters ahead. “I have to go back and pay my rent.”

There’s a large black trash bag lying on the ground between the other two. Dahyun inhales a shaky breath, and she can taste all of its sticky smoke.

“Better run, then,” says Nayeon, tilting her head. “That sounds like the last bus.”

Dahyun can hear the dull roar of an exhausted engine, too, but for some reason she can’t look away from Chaeyoung. “Um, right. I’ll just leave you guys to, uh. Take out the trash.”

Nayeon smiles, and Dahyun can’t decide whether it’s more terrifying than Chaeyoung’s unblinking stare. “Will do. See you later, Dahyun.”

The bus rumbles by, wheel axles groaning as it creaks to a stop just up ahead. Dahyun remembers that she needs to catch it. “Right. Uh, see you later.”

Only Nayeon waves, although Dahyun almost misses the movement of her gloved hand in the darkness. Dahyun makes it onto the bus and practically falls into the front seat. Her legs are shaking. 

The bus jerks into motion once more. Dahyun spends the ride thinking about barbecue and the dark spot splattered onto the skin just under Chaeyoung’s eye, as if someone else had cried it for her. 

Dahyun thinks about the data she’s been collecting -- mostly on the dirtiest of Seoul’s underground and sometimes, the ways the government happens to be connected to it. And how one time during her lunch break in the foyer, the sliding doors had hissed open behind her and Sana had immediately reached under her desk, carefully signing for the unexpected package with her left hand. Dahyun knows that a lot of receptionists have a button they can press in case they require security, but Sana had looked ready to throw much more than a button at the delivery man.

Dahyun also thinks about Nayeon’s friendly smile in spite of the smoking black trash bag at her feet, and the office for HUMAN RESOURCES with its little yellow post-it. 

_Not funny, Im Nayeon._

-

“They came back last night,” Jeongyeon tells Tzuyu when she walks into the room. 

Tzuyu shifts on the sofa, setting aside the carefully folded comforter so that Jeongyeon has space if she wants it. “Nayeon saw me already.”

“Chaeng got a bit hurt -- nothing serious,” Jeongyeon is quick to say. “She was able to patch herself up without Jihyo’s help, but she’s taking a rest first.”

Tzuyu loosens her fists. “Okay.” 

“They’re worried,” Jeongyeon begins. And then amends, “we’re worried. Since they haven’t been able to tie all the loose ends yet. You connected a lot of dots this time, you know.” She shakes her head. “Even all the way to the Blue House. I can’t believe it.”

“The president,” says Tzuyu. “And those ministers -- ”

“Nayeon and Chaeyoung have been taking out their networks from the ground up,” says Jeongyeon. “But they’re only two people. Even if Sana or I went to help --”

“I know.” Tzuyu looks down at her lap, and realizes she’s been tapping her finger. Chaeyoung’s told her to stop doing that. She sighs. “We aren’t enough.”

“Well, that won’t stop us from trying,” says Jeongyeon, and Tzuyu wonders how someone can be so brave. “Hey.”

Tzuyu looks up as Jeongyeon sits beside her. “I’ll be okay. Sana’s going to bring breakfast soon, if you want some.”

Jeongyeon lets out a long exhale, sinking into the couch as she throws an arm over the back of it. She looks out the window; Tzuyu never draws the blinds since they’re already so far above the skyline. “I’m glad we got you a view this time.”

“I’ve never minded either way,” says Tzuyu, because she hasn’t. “Being outside has never done good things for me.”

Jeongyeon gives her a look. “You say some really sad things sometimes, you know?”

Tzuyu taps her finger. “Chaeyoung has mentioned it once or twice.”

“Right.” Jeongyeon’s lip twitches into half of a smile. “You know she only wants the best for you.”

“You all do.” Tzuyu looks down at her lap again. “And I don’t really know what I’ve done to deserve any of it.”

Jeongyeon shrugs. She brings up the hand draped over the back of the couch and combs through the remaining strands of Tzuyu’s bed hair. “I think it’s more like something you’re owed.”

Tzuyu thinks about her parents. She hasn’t for a long time, mostly because it’s hard to remember much past the flames stripping their house of even a charred skeleton, leaving nothing but a blackened hole in the dark earth. Her parents had been warm in a less terrifying way than the fire, but so had the government employees who’d plucked her out of the foster care system before the month was done.

“Hey,” says Jeongyeon, again. “I like that Kim Dahyun.”

Tzuyu nods. “You like everyone.”

“That’s true,” Jeongyeon says. “Have you ever wondered why?”

“All the time,” says Tzuyu. She wonders about a lot of things -- how Chaeyoung knows Nayeon, and how Nayeon knows Jeongyeon and Jihyo. Tzuyu’s still not sure how she and Chaeyoung went from two teenagers breaking out of a military facility to a ragtag group of five only some weeks later. And then before she knew it, Jihyo had found Sana, who found Momo and then Mina, and now Dahyun is here, too.

It’s a nice feeling, having a web of something sketched out before her and still not knowing what to think afterwards.

“I hope Chaeyoung is okay,” Tzuyu says before she’s finished with realizing it.

“Cheer up,” says Jeongyeon, and Tzuyu has to stop her tapping again. “Chaeyoung won’t die because of you. You’re too important to her for that.”

“I know.” Tzuyu looks at the desk beside them, the only item on it the laptop she uses to type up her reports. It looks a little like a wooden version of the table she’d first met Chaeyoung across from, back when she thought that Chaeyoung might just be another warm soldier who would turn sour as soon as she told them her head hurts and she just wanted to see her parents again.

_I’m tired of them,_ Chaeyoung had said, a microphone box blinking its bright red light on the table between them. _They’re stupid and old and care about all the wrong things. They’ll never get it, you know?_

Tzuyu had looked from the light to Chaeyoung, and then to the walls all around her that had as many ears as they had eyes. But still, there was not much more harm in asking. _What about you?_

“Sometimes,” Tzuyu says now, “I think Chaeyoung only sees me as important because she has to.” She pauses, Jeongyeon’s earlier words still echoing in the room. “Like it’s something I’m owed.”

Jeongyeon sighs, shaking her head. She lets Tzuyu’s head fall onto her shoulder, bringing her arm around to keep Tzuyu close. “You kids are always trying to make things complicated, aren’t you?”

It’s a silly thing to say; Jeongyeon is only a few years older, at most. And maybe a little unfair, too. Because for all of the covert operations the group executes on a daily basis, Jeongyeon and Nayeon and the rest will always fit into the world in ways Tzuyu and Chaeyoung are no longer able to. It’s a consequence of being a byproduct of society, recycled in an effort to still make some positive contribution -- but their corners are too rough, edges still too lumpy to fit into the molds they’re shoved into over and over. And in the end, all Tzuyu feels like is someone with too many thoughts and too pale skin and too many friends who are much too kind, thinking that she’s owed something she’s sure she was never meant to be given in the first place.

“I wish you two could have gone to university,” says Jeongyeon. “I know Nayeon didn’t get to, either. But in her case, it’s saving the professors a bunch of gray hairs, at least.”

Tzuyu shifts, tilting her head so that she can look up at Jeongyeon’s profile, at how the other girl’s jawline is a sharp relief against the wisps of hair glow softly in the sunlight. “Did you like it when you went?”

Jeongyeon nods. “I mean, you’re already much smarter than any student on any campus. But you could’ve learned how life is supposed to be lived, you know? And then maybe you’d see.”

Tzuyu closes her eyes. Jeongyeon’s breathing is steady and slow, like the rocking of the ship Chaeyoung had tucked her into the bottom of to bring her anywhere but where they already were. Tzuyu’s slept a lot more these days, but she’s still a little tired. “And what would I see, exactly?”

“That maybe you’re important to Chaeyoung only because she wants you to be,” says Jeongyeon. And stays on the couch with Tzuyu, letting her doze until Sana arrives with enough breakfast and coffee for nine.

-

Chaeyoung probably knows Nayeon better than the back of her own hand.

It’s easy to learn everything about something when it’s constantly in motion, and there’s never a dull moment with Nayeon. Her eyes are always refocusing on the next thing, hands always reaching for what lies deep beneath the surface, her constant spew of words probing for spots of interest that are less physical. 

Chaeyoung knows exactly how Nayeon operates, and that’s how she knows that Nayeon will spill all the secrets of their entire operation before she realizes that Dahyun is already listening through the cracked open door of the HUMAN RESOURCES office.

In Nayeon’s defense, Jihyo doesn’t notice either. But at least Jihyo has the excuse of turning her back to the door.

“I don’t get what the big deal is,” Jihyo says now, crossing her arms. “I’ve already vetted her, and Mina and Momo have nothing but good things to say about her work and discretion. Sana eats lunch with her every day, and Jeongyeon even gives her the sacred midnight ramyun sometimes. What’s left to worry about?”

Nayeon hums, pretending to think. “Oh, I don’t know. How about the fact that she clearly saw me and Chaeng disposing of a body last night, and was maybe one shade away from passing out because of it? That girl’s always been pale, but she shouldn’t go around looking like she’s seen a ghost when she’s the one looking like a bedsheet.”

“It’s a natural reaction to have,” says Jihyo. “And considering the fact that all you two were throwing away were the _ashes_ of a body, I’d say she’s pretty clever for putting it all together and still not saying anything about it afterwards.”

“She said we were taking out the trash,” Nayeon deadpans. 

Jihyo rolls her eyes. “So she enjoys making terrible plays on words, and now there’s someone else who has the same hobby as you do. Shouldn’t this make you happy?”

Nayeon huffs, and then folds her arms across her chest, too. “Look, I’m just not sure she has what it takes. It’s not like she has to hold a gun or anything, but do you really think she’d be able to handle any real pressure?”

“You could ask her,” Chaeyoung finally suggests. The other two both turn to stare at her, and she lifts her chin at the door. 

The hinges creak as the door swings open. Dahyun waves meekly from the other side of the threshold. “Um, hi.”

“Oh,” says Nayeon, who at least has the grace to look mildly surprised. “Hey, Dahyun. We didn’t see you there.” 

Jihyo’s expression suggests that she is about one second from shoving Nayeon through the window, but then Dahyun says, “I really only have one question about the, ah, trash.”

Jihyo stills. Nayeon raises her eyebrows. Chaeyoung watches for every twitch in Dahyun’s expression.

Dahyun tries for a grin, and to her credit, only the corner of her mouth trembles. “I’m not going to be next, am I?”

Jihyo’s mouth drops open a little, but Nayeon doesn’t even try to hide her snort of laughter. Chaeyoung can’t help herself from smiling either, because alright -- this is going even better than Jihyo had been saying it would. So Chaeyoung clears her throat. “Would you two give us a moment?”

Nayeon and Jihyo exchange a glance before nodding and stepping out of the office, ushering Dahyun inside. Nayeon closes the door behind her, and Dahyun stays right in front of it, stiff and eyes darting like she’s afraid there’s going to be a lighter and gasoline hidden in some unassuming corner.

Chaeyoung walks over to Nayeon’s desk and hops up backwards so she can sit on the edge. “What did you come to talk about, originally?”

Dahyun shrugs. “The trash, actually.”

Chaeyoung hums. Dahyun’s hands are shaking, but she keeps them tucked in her hoodie pocket. Chaeyoung idly kicks her legs out, her sneaker heels thudding dully against the wood of the desk as her feet swing back again. “You were scared, then.”

“I still am,” says Dahyun. The bulge of her fist underneath the sweatshirt cloth shifts. “But I figured that since I wasn’t immediately incinerated upon coming into work this morning, I might still have a chance.”

Chaeyoung laughs. “Yeah, you still have a chance. You’ll have to take my word for it, but we don’t generally make a habit of burning the people we want to hire.”

“Seems like a good business model to me,” Dahyun says. Chaeyoung almost believes her straight face, and wishes she’d given herself more time to chat with Dahyun before this. But there might be time, later.

“I’m going to tell you something about Tzuyu,” says Chaeyoung. “Unless you’ve already figured it out.”

“I have some theories,” Dahyun admits. “But they’re mostly delusional.”

Chaeyoung leans back on her hands. “Try me.”

Dahyun thinks for another moment. “Either she’s the head of a very small mafia, or the leader of a very small rebellion against the Korean government.”

Chaeyoung smiles. “You’re not that far off, actually.” She glances away from Dahyun, towards the window and the setting sun that lights up all of Seoul so that it glows like fading embers. “Tzuyu has this superpower. She can take all the information that she’s been given and draw lines between where no one else would have thought to look for dots in the first place.”

“Sounds like overanalyzing,” says Dahyun, although she tenses immediately afterwards, as if she hadn’t meant to make the joke.

“It is,” Chaeyoung says, still smiling. She turns back to Dahyun and pushes herself off the desk. “She’s just really, really good at it. Not at reading people, maybe, but she can read every single action any human has ever made, and figure out the next ten or twenty.”

Dahyun frowns, and Chaeyoung can hear her thinking.

“It doesn’t sound like much of a superpower,” Chaeyoung agrees. “Maybe it just makes her really good at chess, or gives her potential to be a really annoying movie critic. I suppose that’s what her parents must have thought. But then they realized that their kid was listening to the news every day and casually mentioning what’s probably going to happen weeks before it actually did. Eventually the neighbors hear about it, and then the teachers at school realize they can’t teach her history if she’s already predicted the entire book from the first chapter. Before you know it, she’s this small celebrity in her small town. Someone even posted about it on the internet. They called her a prophet.”

Dahyun is holding her breath.

“Then there was a gas explosion,” says Chaeyoung. “I don’t know if it was accidental or not, but Tzuyu was the only one to survive. She got put into foster care, and then the government picked her up. They said they’d take care of her until her parents got back, so could she help them out with some homework problems in the mean time?”

“I knew it,” Dahyun whispers. Chaeyoung raises her eyebrows, and Dahyun clears her throat. “So we’re a very small national rebellion. That _is_ where this tragic backstory is leading to, right?” 

Chaeyoung laughs. “Tzuyu already knew her parents were gone. But she answered every question they put in front of her. She stopped wars from happening and helped set the stage for others. She pinpointed the hideouts of dozens of public enemies, both for her home country as well as their allies. She was doing what a hundred top strategists would struggle to, and all with an eleven o’clock curfew.” 

Dahyun shifts her weight to one leg, her shoulders lowering as she forgets to be nervous. “So where do you come in? Did you break her out?”

Chaeyoung pauses. “I’m not anyone special. But they brought me in because Tzuyu was giving them less and less, and she was starting to prefer enduring punishment over connecting even one more pair of dots. So I was the new friend she could make and grow with and trust in.”

Dahyun narrows her eyes. “‘Not anyone special’? Are you sure you’re not one of those child super spies that could kick James Bond’s ass before they hit puberty?”

“You must watch a lot of movies,” says Chaeyoung. “They raised me with Nayeon, if that tells you anything.”

Dahyun gives a small nod. “Okay, a pair of James Bond ass kickers. Continue.”

Chaeyoung shakes her head, but she’s sure Dahyun can see her smile. “I -- we didn’t like what they were doing, so we broke Tzuyu out. Picked up some help, brought her to another city, and then another country. It’s easier for them to catch up with us than we’d like, but we try to throw some obstacles in their way.”

Dahyun nods again, slower this time. “So you take down corruption and underground organizations, but mostly so whoever might want her is always busy with other issues.”

“It’s more selfish than not,” Chaeyoung agrees. “Sometimes, if we can cover our own tracks well enough, we can sell our information for money.” She stops for a moment. 

Dahyun lets her think.

“To be honest,” Chaeyoung finally says, “I hate that we’re asking her to do the same things she was asked to do before. It’s exactly what we ran from in the first place, and here we still are, doing it just to survive.” She exhales. “But Tzuyu says that she wants to. Because this is what she’s good at, and she has friends to do it for, now.” 

Dahyun swallows, but still says nothing.

Chaeyoung has run out of words, too, busy wondering what would have happened if Tzuyu hadn’t turned out to be so special.

If they were to meet even then, how much faster would Chaeyoung have fallen for her?

“Well,” says Dahyun. “I’m still in. If you’ll have me.”

Chaeyoung blinks into the present. It’s dark outside now, but the moon is high above the tallest of Seoul’s skyscrapers. She meets Dahyun’s gaze, the city lights glimmering in the corners of her eyes. And Chaeyoung nods, halfway through thinking of a joke she can make about not asking Dahyun to empty any of the trash bins in the office.

The door slams open, just missing Dahyun before she can jump to the side. Sana doesn’t even apologize, saving her breath for something else: “They’ve found us.”

Dahyun’s brow furrows. “What?”

“Get her out,” Chaeyoung says immediately. She pushes Dahyun into Sana’s arms, dashing past them and into the hallway. At the end of it, Tzuyu’s door is still closed. 

Sana and Dahyun’s running footsteps in the opposite direction beat steadily in her ears. But then the crash of broken window glass in Tzuyu’s room shatters the rhythm. 

Chaeyoung runs faster.

\- 

“Who is it? Who’s here?” Dahyun pants between urgent attempts to refill her lungs. “Also, if Tzuyu is such a high priority target, why was the office on the _twenty-ninth_ floor?”

“We tried the ‘go where they won’t think we’d go’ route, but that apparently didn’t pan out,” says Sana, who is impressively not out of breath even as they sprint down the stairwell. “Do you want me to carry you?”

“Nope,” Dahyun says faintly. Sana’s fingers squeeze her own. “Hand holding is fine. Hand holding is great. What about everyone else?”

“They’ll be safe,” says Sana. “We have a rendezvous point, and we’ll all get there soon.” 

“Right,” Dahyun breathes.

“Dahyun,” says Sana, the back of her head all Dahyun can see as they descend another flight of stairs. “When we get down, you can keep running. You don’t have to look back.”

“It’s too late,” says Dahyun. “Chaeyoung told me everything, and I already told her yes, so I’m pretty sure that if I tried to leave now, she’s morally obligated to get rid of me.”

They turn the corner before the next stairway, and Dahyun sees a flash of Sana’s smile. “And that’s the only reason?”

“It’s not even one of the reasons.” Dahyun almost misses the last step, but she runs into Sana’s front instead. 

“Are you okay?” Sana asks, voice soft beside her ear. 

“Yeah,” says Dahyun, stepping back. Then she tugs at Sana’s hand, leading them down the next set of steps. “Yeah, I am.”

A sudden blast shakes the building. Sana pulls Dahyun to press against the wall of the stairwell, the echoes of the explosion bouncing off the asphalt around them like a thousand thunderous drums. 

“They’re not very subtle, are they,” Dahyun shouts over the ringing in her ears.

Sana’s lip twitches. “I’m pretty sure that was Chaeyoung, actually.”

Dahyun’s eyes widen. “What?”

“You know what they say,” Sana tells Dahyun over her shoulder as they start running again. “Fight fire with fire.”

-

“Come on,” says Chaeyoung, somehow audible even though Tzuyu’s having trouble hearing much outside of her own head. She’d covered her ears like Chaeyoung had told her to, but next time she’ll invest in protection better than her palms. Chaeyoung speaks again. “Only one stairwell is unblocked now, and we have to get there before the rest of their friends do.”

Tzuyu spares one last glance around the foyer. Fire licks at Sana’s desk and the unyielding metal frame of the sliding doors, now blown wide apart. Several dark lumps to her left and right are busy feeding the blaze, and Tzuyu ignores the stench curling into her nostrils.

It always ends in flames, and Tzuyu should be used to it. But it’s never the fire stuffing the air between them that makes her uneasy. Instead, she always watches exactly how the heated glow dances red along the shadows of Chaeyoung’s hand as she holds it out to Tzuyu.

And this time, Tzuyu sees it. Maybe because Chaeyoung shifts, or maybe because the burning support frame from the wall beside them collapses in a shower of sparks. But for a moment, Tzuyu sees that Chaeyoung’s palm is clean -- smooth, the calluses and scars invisible in the flickering light that perhaps on another planet, could be from a simple sunset.

Chaeyoung actually makes a sound when Tzuyu steps forward and hugs her -- not quite like surprise, but she’s definitely confused. “Tzuyu?”

“You don’t owe me anything,” Tzuyu tells her, staring into their reflection in the hot, jagged remains of the glass doors. Tzuyu sometimes forgets that she’s tall enough to rest her chin on the top of Chaeyoung’s head. She inhales, feeling the bagginess of Chaeyoung’s sweatshirt and the fluttering tickle of breath against her neck, the desperate strength that Chaeyoung’s arms wrap around her waist with. “But I’m going to try and believe that I deserve you.”

Chaeyoung chokes at first. But then she starts to laugh. Her entire body shakes with it, until Tzuyu can hear it over the roar of the fire around them. And then Tzuyu realizes that she’s laughing, too, and presses her forehead into Chaeyoung’s smoke-scented hair.

Then Chaeyoung coughs. “The -- the air is getting too thick. We really need to get out of here.”

“Okay,” says Tzuyu. They step carefully together through the gaping metal frame of the no-longer-sliding doors. “Where are we going next?”

Chaeyoung looks up, eyes watering, and her smile is brighter than any firelight. “We’ll find somewhere.”

Tzuyu believes her.

**Author's Note:**

> i'm around sometimes/all the time @moonrise31


End file.
